Wednesday, July 2, 2014

France's Sarkozy faces corruption probe in blow to comeback hopes

By Gregory Blachier and Gérard Bon

PARIS (Reuters) - Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was placed
under formal investigation on Wednesday on suspicions he tried to use
his influence to thwart an investigation of his 2007 election campaign,
the prosecutor's office said.
The step, which often but not always leads to trial, is a major
setback to Sarkozy's hopes of a comeback after his 2012 defeat by
Socialist rival Francois Hollande.
The conservative politician denies wrongdoing in a string of
investigations where his direct or indirect implication has cast doubt
on his viability as a candidate in the 2017 elections.
He is due to give a television interview at 1800 GMT.
Magistrates are looking at whether Sarkozy used his influence to
secure leaked details of a inquiry into alleged irregularities in his
victorious 2007 campaign. He is suspected of influence-peddling,
corrupting officials, and benefiting from breach of professional
secrets, the prosecutor's office said.
The first former president to spend time in police custody, Sarkozy,
59, was detained for 15 hours on Tuesday before being transferred to
appear before investigating magistrates who will run the inquiry. He was
then released without bail.
Sarkozy "has gone through other ordeals of this nature, he has
always known how to fight," said Paul-Albert Iweins, the attorney for
Sarkozy's own attorney, Thierry Herzog, who is also being investigated
for influence-peddling along with a judge involved in the affair.
Iweins said the inquiry was weak as it relied on legally
questionable phone taps of conversations between Sarkozy and Herzog as
well as between Herzog and the president of the French Bar.
Sarkozy's allies cast doubts over the impartiality of one of the
investigating magistrates, with Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice,
telling France Info state radio that Hollande's government had whipped
up "an atmosphere of hate".
Prime Minister Manuel Valls dismissed accusations of a plot.
Investigating magistrates have a unique and powerful role under
French law, both gathering evidence and determining whether it is solid
enough for a trial. After the inquiry, the magistrate can drop the case
for lack of proof or "charge" the accused, sending the case to trial.
Influence-peddling can be punished by up to five years in prison and
corrupting officials can trigger a sentence of up to 10 years.
It was the second time the ex-president, who lost immunity from
legal prosecution a month after he left office in June 2012, has been
placed under such a judicial probe. The first was in 2013 but
magistrates later dropped the case against him.
WEB OF INQUIRIES
Six legal cases, including this one, hang over the ex-president's
head, a shadow that many in his fractured UMP party believe compromises
his ability to lead a comeback in 2017.
"This legal saga is disastrous," wrote the influential Le Monde
daily in a front-page editorial. "Each of these episodes ... demonstrate
that for its actors and the leading one in particular, the end
justifies all the means." In the current affair, Sarkozy is accused of
using his influence to get information on a troublesome legal inquiry
into funding irregularities in his victorious 2007 election campaign.
Specifically, magistrates are looking to see whether Sarkozy tried
to get a judge promoted to the bench in Monaco in exchange for
information on that campaign funding inquiry, in which he was accused of
exploiting the mental frailty of France's richest woman, L'Oreal
heiress Liliane Bettencourt, for campaign funds.
Those accusations against Sarkozy were dismissed in October.
But as investigators last year used phone-taps to examine separate
allegations that late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi funded the same
campaign, they began to suspect that Sarkozy had kept tabs on the
Bettencourt case, before he was dropped from it, through a network of
informants.
Those suspicions prompted police to launch an inquiry in February,
which led to Wednesday's events. Under French law, a suspect is not
formally charged with a crime unless he is sent to trial.
(Writing by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Mark John, Toby Chopra and Anna Willard)